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Minefield
'' |image= |series= |production=40358-128/203 |producer(s)= |story= |script=John Shiban |director=James Contner |imdbref=tt0572224 |guests=Tim Glenn as Med Tech and Elizabeth Magness as Injured Crewman |previous_production=Shockwave Part 2 |next_production=A Night in Sickbay |episode=ENT S02E03 |airdate=2 October 2002 |previous_release=Carbon Creek |next_release=Dead Stop |story_date(s)=Unknown (2152) |previous_story=Carbon Creek |next_story=Dead Stop }} =Summary= Captain Archer is in the captain's private mess, trying, unsuccessfully, to get to know Lieutenant Reed better. Meanwhile, Enterprise nears an uncharted and seemingly uninhabited planet for closer observation. Its proximity, however, triggers a cloaked mine, heavily damaging the ship and flooding Sickbay with injured crew members. Soon, another cloaked mine is detected as it attaches itself to the hull, but it doesn't immediately detonate for some reason. With the core already damaged, it is feared that a further detonation will totally disable the vessel. Reed then goes EV to try to disarm it. As a backup plan, Archer orders Commander Tucker to prepare to detach and jettison the affected section of hull plating. Initially Reed's efforts seem to be working, but an alien vessel suddenly decloaks, and fires warning shots at the ship. Ensign Mayweather assumes manual control and steers the ship carefully out of the minefield. During the maneuvers, however, a jolt accidentally activates another magnetic grappling arm that impales Reed's leg before attaching itself to the spaceship's hull, thus pinning him down. Archer also dons an EVA suit and attempts to disarm the mine under Reed's direction. Enterprise then makes first contact with the Romulan Star Empire when two Warbirds decloak and demand that they jettison the mine with Reed attached. Knowing that any attempt to cut the arm would set off the mine, Reed becomes insistent on sacrificing himself to save Enterprise. Archer returns to the ship and requests two shuttle hatches from a puzzled Commander Tucker, also ordering him to detach the hull plate as planned. As the plates and the attached mine float off, he severs the spike holding Reed. This arms the mine, but Reed and Archer are also able to shield themselves from the resulting explosion. Enterprise then collects the crewmen before warping away from the secretive Romulans. =Errors and Explanations= # Why didn't they use the transporter to get Archer and Reed away from the mine that was about to explode? It may have triggered the mine's detonator. Internet Movie Database Plot holes # In Star Trek: Balance of Terror, set in 2266, the Federation did not know about a Romulan cloaking device. If the NX-01 reported it in 2152, the NCC-1701 would have been expecting it. Subsequant long range scans of Romulan space might have indicated that development and use of cloaking technology had been abandoned. Nit Central # Sparrow47 on Wednesday, September 25, 2002 - 7:19 pm: Well, from the preview given after Carbon Creek, it appears the Romulans have a cloaking device at this point. Which makes me wonder why Kirk was so shocked when the Romulans had one in Balance of Terror. The Undesirable Element on Wednesday, September 25, 2002 - 9:27 pm: I don't really count emotions as nits (unless they're displayed by a Vulcan :) ). If Kirk actually said "Romulans never had cloaking devices before!" or something like that, then it would be a nit. It takes a little more than a shocked expression to constitute a nit for me. You have to be careful about things like this. It's been years since I've seen Balance of Terror all the way through. I don't remember anything about how Kirk felt about the cloaking device. I remember that it was uncommon, but I don't recall if it was completely unheard of in Kirk's time. Sparrow47 on Wednesday, September 25, 2002 - 9:39 pm: IIRC, the entire point of the ep was that the Romulans had this new toy (the cloak), which they used to blow away Federation outposts along the Neutral Zone. Kirk had to find a way to outwit and destroy the enemy commander... which of course he did. TomM on Wednesday, September 25, 2002 - 9:52 pm: In The Enterprise Incident, the captains's log speaks of the cloak as a new development, but I get the impression he means a more recent development than would be true if he was referring to the same cloak as in Balance.… After they steal the device, and Spock tells the Romulan subcommander that they will unlock its secrets, she tells him that miltary secrets are the most fleeting of all. (And yet the Romulans did have effective cloaking technology in the TNG era) My guess is that "Cloaking Device" is used to designate any and all Romulan Stealth technology. and Kirk's shock is partly based on how much further Romulan stealth technology advanced in the previous century than even remotely expected. Besides, don't forget that in Balance..., flying through the tail of a comet was enough to disrupt the stealth effect of the cloak.SMT on Wednesday, October 02, 2002 - 7:29 pm: Well, it's official. The cloaking device, which was a surprise to the crew of Kirk's Enterprise more a bit over a century in the future, is well established in this century. Continuity? They don't got to show us no stinkin' continuity! The Undesirable Element on Wednesday, October 02, 2002 - 9:48 pm: The cloaking device in and of itself was NOT a surprise to Kirk's Enterprise. Kirk and Co were surprised at the advancement of the Romulan cloaking device. In fact, in order to be surprised at the advancement of Romulan cloaking technology, they'd have to have a prior frame of reference, and this would be it.ClaytonRumley on Thursday, October 03, 2002 - 9:12 am: Of course, the Romulans having cloaking devices could be a result of the Temporal Cold War. Seeing how the humans, Tandarans and the Suliban are aware of it, odds are that the Romulans are too. Of course, Reed said that the mines were already pretty old, and they speculated that the cloaking devices on the mines were older technology than the ships. # Sparrow47 on Wednesday, October 02, 2002 - 7:27 pm: So, shouldn't this episode be set sometime around May/June (from the one-year anniversary of T'Pol's joining the crew, cited last ep)? If World Cup is usually played later in the summer, meaning they should be nowhere near the finals. Oh, and about that World cup, since the Cup is played every four years and was played this year, then 2152 would be a Cup year. But that implies that the Cup was never shut down due to one of those pesky World Wars, or that it happened to be reinstated along the same track as it currently follows. Not necessarily a nit, but... interesting. SMT on Wednesday, October 02, 2002 - 7:29 pm: Archer talks about the World Cup finals. It's 2152. If the World Cup stays on its quadrennial schedule (okay, maybe a bit of a stretch, but they resumed it perfectly once before after losing two tournaments to WWII), World Cup finals should happen in 2150 and 2154, not 2152. I was going to add a nit about the finals taking place in summer, while this should be early May at the outside, but that's not really inconsistent. The "World Cup finals" doesn't mean the championship match, but the whole tournament, and the entries for the tournament are decided months in advance. Kudos (or lucky break) to the writers -- and okay, enough about soccer! LUIGI NOVI on Thursday, February 19, 2004 - 8:21 pm: Might not WWIII have thrown the schedule off just a tad? Is it impossible that the tradition concerning the time of year could have changed? Seniram 11:35, October 13, 2018 (UTC) There are precedents for adjusting the timing. Until the early 1990s, the Olympic Winter Games took place in the same year as the Summer Games, and only alternated with the summer games from 1994. In addition, the 2022 World Cup is currently due to take place in Qatar, from 21 November until 18 December, to avoid the summer heat between May and September, and also avoid clashing with the 2022 Winter Olympics in February and Ramadan in April. # So, after never having seen Phlox with any medical staff... where did these medical techs come from? TJFleming on Thursday, October 03, 2002 - 9:05 am: Asked and answered. See mine in Dear Doctor: "it wouldn't make sense in a population that small to have additional DEDICATED medical staff (with nothing to do most of the time) when you can cross-train mission staff to assist the doctor as-needed." IOW, they just stepped over from their day jobs. Sparrow47 on Thursday, October 03, 2002 - 5:09 pm: Heyyyyyyyy, that makes a lot of sense. Never mind, then. LUIGI NOVI on Thursday, October 17, 2002 - 1:09 am: Can they be sufficiently cross-trained to assist a surgery? Shouldn't he at least have one nurse. When performing surgery on Porthos in A Night in Sickbay, he didn't even have one "med tech" to help him. TJFleming on Thursday, October 17, 2002 - 8:09 am: "Cross-train" was ill-chosen on my part. More accurately, you select your crew from individuals who already have expertise in several fields. Same result at a higher level of competence. # When the shockwave from the mine blast catches Archer and Reed, shouldn't it carry them away from one another? I'm not entirely sure on this, but since the explosion should be a sphere, it will strike the two officers from different angles, thus sending them in different directions. If the shockwave were straight (like, say, the one from ST:VI), it would carry them in the same direction, but otherwise… Depends on their relative positions – if they were right next to each other, the blast could send them in the same direction. # The Romulans demand that Enterprise sacrifice one crewman pinned to the hull plating, noting that 82 others would remain safe aboard. How does Archer enter into their calculation? Sparrow47 on Wednesday, October 02, 2002 - 7:47 pm: Since they seemed to indicate that the loss of "one" crewman was acceptable, I imagine they would let Archer scamper back to safety. And does this count add up with what we've got tallied so far? # Sparrow47 on Wednesday, October 02, 2002 - 7:47 pm: Once Archer reconnects Reed's air tube, his tank status is still dropping. Why? Is there another leak somewhere? LUIGI NOVI on Sunday, October 06, 2002 - 5:47 pm: To indicate the air that has already escaped? ' # ''Yasu on Wednesday, October 02, 2002 - 8:53 pm: So I think it's great that they use the device they used to detect the Suliban ships to detect the mines. I think some other areas of Nitcentral cover the great technology we never hear from again. On the other hand, couldn't they have either transported the mine off the ship, or transported Reed back into the ship so they could separate the hull section without sacrificing our morbid, pessimistic armory officer? ''Dragon on Wednesday, October 02, 2002 - 10:25 pm:'' Don't forget that the mine has Reed shish-kebabed to the hull. Is Enterprise's transporter precise enough to lock onto the mine, but not the struts? And after what happened to Novakavich in Strange New World, one might wonder what the transporter might do reassembling Malcolm's leg with the metal bar thru it. Sparrow47 on Wednesday, October 02, 2002 - 10:49 pm: Yes, but once the mine is going to go off anyway, I think the transporter is an infinitelly better idea than holding the shuttle hatches... what is that? ScottN on Thursday, October 03, 2002 - 12:08 am: Simple solution: Jettison the deck plate. When it's far enough away, USE THE FREAKIN' TRANSPORTER and beam Reed (with a piece of spike in his leg) away. Then we don't have the contrived bit with the shuttlepod doors. Seniram 11:35, October 13, 2018 (UTC)''Any use of the transporter could have triggered the mine’s detonation system.' # After all the speculation on this site with regard to how they can have Romulans on this episode and still maintain continuity, I thought there must have been people screaming and pulling their hair out when Hoshi said, "Romulan Star Empire" The Undesirable Element on Wednesday, October 02, 2002 - 9:48 pm: Please clarify. How does mentioning the Romulans create a nit??? THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO HAVE A FRIGGIN WAR WITH THESE PEOPLE!!! COME ON!! THEY'VE GOT TO MEET THEM SOMEHOW!! # Duke of Earl Grey on Wednesday, October 02, 2002 - 9:50 pm: When the Romulans are first trying to hail Enterprise, the UT isn't translating them, and Hoshi is conveniently wounded and off the bridge, so nobody responds to them. Shouldn't they explain their situation to the Romulans immediately, anyway, and hope that they can translate it on their end? Christopher Q on Thursday, October 03, 2002 - 7:22 am: I've been wondering why our guys have to do all the translating. Don't aliens have translators? The crew didn't even try sending out a message in all known languages. They could have said something like 'We don't understand your language, do you understand ours?' Maquis Lawyer on Thursday, October 03, 2002 - 8:17 am: Someone suggested that the UT shouldn't have had as much trouble translating the Romulan message. However, the Romulans left Vulcan at least 2000 years ago. Even on Earth, language can change a lot in that time, and for a space-faring species, the Romulan language would likely have developed along much different lines than Vulcan (and that's assuming that the Romulans who left Vulcan even spoke the same language as those who stayed.) Seniram 11:35, October 13, 2018 (UTC) At that point in the encounter, the hail from the Romulan ship could be a one way only transmission – possibly a pre recorded message along the lines of ‘Leave this area immediately, or we open fire’. # TrekGrrl on Thursday, October 03, 2002 - 12:30 am: How were the crew able to see the cloaked mines? They weren't able to see cloaked things in TOS. Mylan on Thursday, October 03, 2002 - 1:00 am: The cloaking devices in Kirk's time are more advanced.Keith Alan Morgan (Kmorgan) on Thursday, October 03, 2002 - 5:13 am: In truth Archer & company shouldn't be running into any race's with cloaking devices because Spock says that "invisibility is theoretically possible". He doesn't mention Suliban or Xyrillians he says THEORETICAL! Meaning that this is the first time that any kind of cloaking technology has shown up. Seniram 11:35, October 13, 2018 (UTC) This could be a side effect of the TCW # Also Spock says about invisibility that "the power cost is enormous". So shouldn't these rinky dink little mines have huge generators? Or small one capable of generating lots of power! # So why is the translator having trouble interpreting Romulan? Shouldn't it be a Vulcan variant? Christopher Q on Thursday, October 03, 2002 - 8:35 am: If Romulan language were a variation of Vulcan, then both T'Pol and Hoshi should recogize it. I did find it odd that T'Pol had to correct Hoshi on how to pronounce Romulan. It is an Earth term. Regarding Rihannsu versus Romulan: It's not like an alien is who can speak broken English shows you a picture of fire, then says "I call this 'ekcvi' what do you call it?" If he calls himself 'Rihannsu', then why would I say, "In my language that means Romulan"? And even if I did, how would a Vulcan know my translation? Kazeite on Saturday, October 05, 2002 - 9:35 am: There's no way that Romulans could refer to themselves as "Romulans". Romulus and Remus are Earth names for their 'home' star system (hence 'Romulans'). So, the actual comm message translated to English should sound like that: "We claim this planet on behalf of the Rihannsu Star Empire!" :) Merat on Saturday, October 05, 2002 - 10:00 am: This is standard for Trek. After all, the Klingon in Broken Bow (Klang?) called a star Rigel. Thande on Wednesday, December 03, 2003 - 8:05 am: This may have been pointed out before, but… When Hoshi is transcripting the Romulan message, she says the ship is from 'the Rom-uhhlan Star Empire', T'Pol corrects her with 'Rom-yulan. It's Rom-yulan'. Dramatic music and fade. But...Romulan is an Earth word. (Remember 'Romulus and Remus'?) The only way this makes sense is if Romulan was an Earth codename for a nameless race, which was the one the novel writers have used up till now. Unfortunately, the episode blows that theory out of the water. KAM on Thursday, December 04, 2003 - 2:28 am: My theory (and it's completely non-canonical) is that the Romulans stopped off on Earth sometime after leaving Vulcan, and then left. Therefore Romulan & Romulan culture might have been introduced to Earth by aliens, or the aliens just liked those aspects of Earth and took them with. Thande on Thursday, December 04, 2003 - 4:41 am: Prior to this episode that was another possible theory, but why would Hoshi mispronounce it? Don't teach the classics in the 22nd Century? (Actually, given the way education's going nowadays, that's quite plausible!) # So Enterprise is zooming along at maybe a few thousands of kilometers a second when it 'scoops' up Archer & Reed? Ever seen bugs on a windshield? ScottN on Friday, October 04, 2002 - 4:37 pm: Yeah, a few thousand km/s relative to the planet. Archer and Reed were moving at best a few hundred feet per second relative to the Enterprise. Remember, motion is relative. In real life, the space shuttle and the space station are travelling over 17000 miles per hour, yet they dock with no problem. The reason? They are moving with that speed RELATIVE TO THE EARTH. Relative to each other, they have very small velocities. # Yasu on Thursday, October 03, 2002 - 7:39 am: Did they ever explain why the second mine de-cloaked and did not detonate? The first one exploded without any warning. One way to explain it is if the Romulans could remotely change the mine’s settings. First one we’ll blow away corner of their ship, some but not a large amount of damage. Second one we’ll put next to that thing that looks like a reactor and show them that it’s there so they don’t try any funny business.LUIGI NOVI on Monday, October 07, 2002 - 8:53 pm: When Reed first scans the mine in Act 1, he says its promity sensors are off-line, and that the mine didn't think it hit anything. This explains why it didn't detonate, but not why it de-cloaked. Perhaps, we can presume, that if the sensors were damaged, its cloak was damaged as well? # ScottN on Thursday, October 03, 2002 - 9:46 am: I just wish that they'd had Archer make some comment about the Romulan Star Empire, given that he asked Daniels about it in Shockwave II. Yasu on Thursday, October 03, 2002 - 9:53 am: I'm pretty sure Archer did say something about how he heard about the Romulans when he was with Daniels, and that Daniels wouldn't let him read about it. margie on Thursday, October 03, 2002 - 11:52 am: Archer definitely did mention that he recalled reading the name Romulan Star Empire when he was with Daniels. Reed then asked him more about it, & Archer said Daniels wouldn't let him read the book. # roger on Friday, October 04, 2002 - 4:07 pm: Why couldn't they just beam out just part of the mine? ScottN on Friday, October 04, 2002 - 4:35 pm: Anti-nit. In this time period, they don't have point-to-point beaming. That didn't show up until TNG. They'd have had to beam the part of the mine into the transporter room, and then beam it out. Not the world's safest thing to do... # LUIGI NOVI on Friday, October 04, 2002 - 6:37 pm: In Act 1, Archer orders Travis to scan the area with the quantum beacon on the grappler arm given to them by Daniels in Shockwave Part 1. But wasn’t all the technology Daniels gave Archer in Shockwave Part 1 to be destroyed after that mission? Archer specifically told Reed in that episode not to look in Daniels’ library for anything other than the quantum beacon, which would indicate that Archer understood the dangers of timeline pollution. So why do they still have the beacon? Rene on Saturday, October 05, 2002 - 8:12 pm: I say Daniels told Archer to keep it so that they could use it in the future against the Suliban.Brian Webber on Saturday, October 05, 2002 - 10:49 pm: Uh, maybe I'm wrong, but didn't Archer have that cloak-dectector made with stuff that was available on the ship, and NOT with stuff from Daniel's quarters? LUIGI NOVI on Saturday, October 05, 2002 - 11:59 pm: The materials were what they had, but the specifications for them came from Daniels' holographic files. ''Seniram 11:35, October 13, 2018 (UTC)''As for why they kept the beacons, they probably realised it would also be useful for certain types of scientific research, such as looking for micro-singularities. # When the mine goes off in Act 4, it knocks Archer and Reed in two different directions. When trying to snag the two officers in Launch Bay 2, Travis notes when they’re 100 meters away, and then 2 seconds later, he notes when they’re 50 meters away, and then 2 seconds later, he says he’s got them. First, how can he capture both of them at the same time if they were blown in opposite directions? He probably managed to adjust Enterprise’s direction in order to line them up with the bay. # If they’re travelling at 25 meters per second, then wouldn’t it have hurt when they slammed into the inside of the Launch Bay? It would’ve made more sense to snag each one of them with the grappler. Archer and Reed could have grabbed something to slow themselves down. # When Archer and Reed are seen in Launch Bay 2 at the end of the episode, the shuttlepod hatches they used to shield themselves from the explosion are not there with them. What happened to them? They were most likely pushed away after the explosion. # MarkN on Saturday, October 05, 2002 - 12:23 am: So will Reed have a permanent limp from now on or is medicine so advanced to this point that they've got tools and medications that instantaneously regenerate tissue, like in Kirk's time? Sparrow47 on Saturday, October 05, 2002 - 8:58 am: Since the spike missed the bone, I doubt he'd have a permanent limp. Seniram 11:35, October 13, 2018 (UTC) SPOILER ALERT! Reed’s injury is among the repairs carried out by the automated station in the following episode. # KAM on Sunday, October 06, 2002 - 8:08 am: To do a little Monday Morning Quarterbacking, I was wondering why TPTB needed to have a cloaking device in this episode. The only reason I could think of was that even the lunkheaded space tourists wouldn't intentionally blunder into a minefield so the mines had to be cloaked or otherwise disguised. But why would the Romulans hide their mines? Why not just have satellites broadcasting, "This system is property of the Romulan Star Empire! Stay away!" Mines that suddenly appear, and explode/attach themselves to a ship, will always be more of a deterant than a satellite broadcasting a warning, especially if the warning is in a language the trespassers don’t understand! # Jason on Tuesday, October 08, 2002 - 8:05 pm: About the differences between Vulcan and Romulan... both English and German have the same roots, but they are quite different. T'Pol might not know enough about ancient Vulcan languages to pick up on the similarities between current vulcan and current romulan, or just reguarded them as coincidences. There are quite a few words in different languages that sound similar but have completly different meanings. constanze on Sunday, June 12, 2005 - 12:26 am: Huh??? You've ever heard or seen German? You can pick out the common germanic roots to both languages just by looking at similar words! It's very easy to see the relation in those languages. It's hard to see the relation of Hindi and English, although both belong the Indo-european family. Thande on Sunday, June 12, 2005 - 5:13 am: Constanze has a point. Vulcan and Romulan probably diverged about 1800-1900 years before this episode (judging by evidence in TOS and later Enterprise episodes) but even languages separated by that much can be grouped together by a skilled philologist. Of course, we don't know whether Vulcan languages evolve and diverge at the same rate as human ones. Alternative explanations might be: -The Romulan movement on Vulcan was also identified with a particular Vulcan country which had a language not related to any of the others; -The Romulans were using an invented tongue or code they use to outsiders to ensure said outsiders don't find out they're related to Vulcans. # LUIGI NOVI on Sunday, December 29, 2002 - 5:46 pm: Why do the mines have magnetic spikes that attach to the hull if they’re supposed to explode upon impact? What’s the point of these? Hell, the mine doesn’t even blow up as soon as Archer accidentally triggers the subdetonator it at the end of Act 3, but gives him time to deactivate it! Is there some tactical advantage to having a mine attach to an enemy ship and blow up some time later, rather than simply blowing up when first coming into contact with it? Blue Berry on Sunday, December 29, 2002 - 6:54 pm: Luigi, It was a Romulan shot across the bow. You might think a beacon or two screaming "This is ours!! Go away!!" would do the trick. You are not thinking like a Romulan. (A common human weakness.:)) The first mine explodes on impact. The second mine attaches and decloaks in case they didn't know it was there. Then when your ships show up to say, "This is ours!! Go away!!" the people with the mine know who's boss. Of course we still have why the mine wouldn't just blow up when someone tried to deactivate it. (It could've at least stuck out a flag that said BANG!!:)) Category:Episodes Category:Enterprise